Thats what a man wants in a wife, mostly: he wants to make sure o one fool asll tell him hes wise. But theres some men can do wiout thatthey think so much o themselves areadyan thats how it is theres old bachelors. George Eliot.

The absent one is an ideal person; those who are present seem to one another to be quite commonplace. It is a silly thing that the ideal is, as it were, ousted by the real; that may be the reason why to the moderns their ideal only manifests itself in longing. Goethe.

The accepted and betrothed lover has lost the wildest charms of his maiden in her acceptance of him. She was heaven whilst he pursued her as a starshe cannot be heaven if she stoops to such a one as he. Emerson.

The accusing spirit, which flew up to heavens chancery with the oath, blushed as he gave it in; and the recording angel, as he wrote it down, dropped a tear upon the word and blotted it out for ever. Sterne.

The aim of all morality, truly conceived, is to furnish men with a standard of action and a motive to work by, which shall not intensify each mans selfishness, but raise him ever more and more above it. J. C. Sharp.

The amateur, however weak may be his efforts at imitation, need not be discouraged, for one advances to an idea the more surely and steadily the more accurately and precisely he considers individual objects. Only it will not do to measure ones self with artists; every one must go on in his own style. Goethe.

The astonishing intellect that occupies itself in splitting hairs, and not in twisting some kind of cordage and effectual draught tackle to take the road with, is not to me the most astonishing of intellects. I want twisted cordage, steady pulling, and a peaceable base tone of voice; not split hairs, hysterical spasmodics, and treble. Carlyle.

The beginning, and very nearly the end, of bodily education for a girl, is to make sure that she can stand and sit upright; the ankle vertical, and firm as a marble shaft; the waist elastic as a reed, and as unfatiguable. Ruskin.

The best rules to form a young man are, to talk little, to hear much, to reflect alone upon what has passed in company, to distrust ones own opinions, and value others that deserve it. Sir W. Temple.

The Bible contains more true sublimity, more exquisite beauty, more pure morality, more important history, and finer strains of poetry and eloquence than can be collected from all other books, in whatever age or language they have been written. Sir William Jones.

(The Bible) contains plain teaching for men of every rank of soul and state of life, which so far as they honestly and implicitly obey, they will be happy and innocent to the utmost powers of their nature, and capable of victory over all adversities, whether of temptation or pain. Ruskin.

The Bible of a nation, the practically credited Gods message to a nation, is, beyond all else, the authentic biography of its heroic souls. This is the real record of the appearances of God in the history of a nation; this, which all men to the marrow of their bones can believe, and which teaches all men what the nature of this universe, when you go to work in it, really is. Carlyle.

The bishop has set his foot in iti.e., the broth is singed. Proverb. (The explanation of which, according to Grose, is: Whenever a bishop passed through a town or a village, all the inhabitants ran out to receive his blessing; this frequently caused the milk on the fire to be left till burnt.)

The blood of man should never be shed but to redeem the blood of man. It is well shed for our family, for our friends, for our God, for our country, for our kind. The rest is vanity, the rest is crime. Burke.

The breeding of a man makes him courageous by instinct, true by instinct, loving by instinct, as a dog is; and therefore, felicitously above, or below (whichever you like to call it), all questions of philosophy and divinity. Ruskin.

The calling of a mans self to a strict account is a medicine sometimes too piercing and corrosive; reading good books of morality is a little flat and dead but the best receipt (best to work, and best to take) is the admonition of a friend. Bacon.

The capacity of apprehending what is high is very rare; and therefore, in common life a man does well to keep such things for himself, and only to give out so much as is needful to have some advantage against others. Goethe.

The Carlyles were men who lavished their heart and conscience upon their work; they builded themselves, their days, their thoughts and sorrows, into their houses; they leavened the soil with the sweat of their rugged brows. John Burroughs.

The centuries are all lineal children of one another; and often, in the portrait of early grandfathers, this and the other enigmatic feature of the newest grandson will disclose itself, to mutual elucidation. Carlyle.

The champion true / Loves victory more when, dim in view, / He sees her glories gild afar / The dusky edge of stubborn war, / Than if th untrodden bloodless field / The harvest of her laurels yield. Keble.

The character of the person that commends you is to be considered before you set a value on his esteem. The wise man applauds him whom he thinks most virtuous; the rest of the world, him who is most wealthy. (?)

The characteristic mark of minds (Geister) of the first order is the directness (Unmittelbarkeit) of all their judgments. All that they bring forth (vorbringen) is the result of their own thinking. Schopenhauer.